In S.C., Clinton touts diversity

Former President Bill Clinton returned Tuesday to South Carolina, the site of a fierce 2008 clash between his wife’s presidential campaign and that of then-Sen. Barack Obama’s. This time around, as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton weighs another presidential bid, her husband championed diversity of opinions while also paying tribute to a longtime ally.

Clinton spoke at the Peace Center in Greenville, S.C., during an event held in honor of former Gov. Dick Riley, a Democrat who served as a secretary of education under Clinton and endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2008. His speech, which lasted nearly 40 minutes, touched on a range of subjects, including Disney World (“I like to go there myself,” he said as he praised technological advances in Florida), education, Russia and the importance of valuing people from disparate backgrounds.

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“This is rather a different crowd than if we had a meeting like this 40 years ago,” Clinton said. “This crowd is younger, it has more women, it has more diversity than it would have. And it’s a good thing. It’s the most interesting time to be alive.”

Earlier Tuesday, Hillary Clinton said explicitly, according to reports, that she is “thinking about” running again for president. She has said that she will announce her decision by the end of this year.

In 2008, the former first lady’s campaign floundered in the Palmetto State, where the spotlight fell on Bill Clinton for some controversial remarks he made about the Obama campaign’s approach to race. About six years later, his tone was starkly different as the former president preached the virtues of open-mindedness.

“The future will belong, in my opinion, to people who try to cultivate our interesting differences but grounded in the simple fact that our common humanity matters more,” he said. “Most people spend 99-and-a-half percent of their time worrying about the half-a-percent of us that’s different. And I’m not just talking about politics.”

Profits from the event go to the Riley Institute at Furman University, named for Tuesday’s honoree — who once declined Bill Clinton’s offer of a Supreme Court appointment.

“You could brand Furman if you will … as a place where problems are solved, potential is unleashed,” Clinton said. “People don’t care about politics. They care about the purpose of developing the human potential” in South Carolina and beyond.

He also touched on a major priority of his wife’s: early childhood education. It’s an issue the Clintons work on through their family foundation, including with an initiative titled “Too Small to Fail.”

“We cannot afford in the United States to allow a whole generation of our young people to be both underemployed and under-educated,” Bill Clinton said.”And we have to begin with early childhood education and stay with them as they move through life, through a seamless system of lifetime education and training.”